Try To Remember The 1st September

On Saturday the 1st September I queued up at my customary stalls in Martel’s market as I do each Saturday morning. Only, this Saturday, the queues were a mere fraction of the size that they have been over the last couple of months. The Egg Man joked that it had been difficult to get up that morning. Sabine – or Bio Woman, who grows vegetables fit for superhero(in)es – told me that earlier it had been four degrees down in the valley. Only two weeks before the temperature had climbed above 40.


Suddenly the crowds have gone for another year. The roads around here are no longer so full of Plastic Fantastics, the mobile camper vans that clog up the highways and threaten to topple over on sharp bends. It all happens so suddenly. Almost as if high summer is some kind of Never Never Land and we wake up as if from a dream to stare at the familiar landscape in which we exist for the remaining ten months. While queuing for my onions, I overheard two good ol’ boys looking forward to the slaughter of the new hunting season. (Something else to look forward to, now that autumn’s on the way. I made a mental note to heap pestilence upon both their houses.)


September 1st is such a symbolic landmark. On this day, already nine years ago, the digger man dug out the foundations of our house-to-be. Children and their parents everywhere are busy thinking about the rentrée des classes. Those of us who have woken up from Never Never Land with a gloomy frame of mind are maybe thinking about the next phase of La Crise and how we’re going to get through it. As yet, I haven’t encountered a single rich and famous French person heading for a haven where they won’t have to pay the new president’s new wealth tax. But then, they’ll all be off by air or sea and unlikely to pass by the Lot.


For the time being, though, there were smaller, more practical things to occupy this first Saturday of Normal Service. Such as: how to work around an earlier time for Football Focus. I decided to record it while making lunch and then to eat lunch while watching the recording. Simples! (When you have the technology.) It was all about huge last-minute transfers before the ‘window’ closes. While I ate-and-fumed, I couldn’t help wonder why we continue to tolerate such inequity in our society. I’d read about the stir Nick Clegg’s proposed one-off wealth tax is creating in the UK. It’s only half of one per cent or something piddling, which seems very little to give back to the so-called Big Society that’s helped to swell their wealth. I noted on a Post-it to heap pestilence upon the House of Beckham and other overpaid mercenaries of his kidney. (Actually, while I’d encourage the Grim Reaper to carry off the surly Victoria, I might ask him to spare the boy David and his children if they promised to do more for the common good.)


Once my raging fury had abated and I’d tidied up the lunch things, I took Tilley over to see a friend and help her sort out her stuff for Clermont-Ferrand, where she’s going for some higher education. One by one, her school friends are dispersing to pastures new – to Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Paris – and trepidation is rife. In the middle of the month, she swaps the familiar peace and quiet of the Lotois countryside for the hurly-burly and hullabaloo of the capital. The prospect is understandably scary.


Having dropped off The Daughter, I drove over to see my friend, Adrian, the tree surgeon, and on the way to deposit our duvets for cleaning. The nights are getting appreciably colder and soon a blanket and cover will no longer suffice. As I popped the ticket into my wallet, I couldn’t help think what a packed multifarious existence I lead.


Adrian was packing up his latest second-hand van with beer and wine for the long haul back to Dunkirk and thence to Cornwall. He helped me load into the car a pair of acro-props he’s lent me for the duration to prop up a rotting beam underneath our back balcony. Then he showed me around the latest home improvements he’s made during his summer here. He’s just had the house valued. Since he’s been going through a messy protracted separation from his wife, he was delighted to show me a valuation he’s just received from an estate agent. I was staggered by how low it was. It just goes to show how far the property market has fallen and how much value a new road can strip from your assets. If other people had put the kind of work he’d put into the place over the years, they would be devastated by such a valuation. But Adrian doesn’t intend to sell. The house still represents his dream of a better future and the negative equity will help him wriggle reasonably unscathed out of the financial net in which he’s been trapped for so long. Or so he hopes.


Back home, I found the girls watching another episode of Six Feet Under on the box upstairs. There was just enough time to give the dog a quick walk and call for Daisy, who hadn’t come in for her breakfast. Friends were expecting us within the half hour. We were to bring Alf over to meet their new puppy and effect an introduction. We like to think of these friends as Alfie’s godparents, since they’ve looked after him whenever we’ve gone off on holiday without him. The trouble is, we haven’t been able to reciprocate, as their last dog was a bit of a loose cannon – and forever guilty of traumatising Daisy’s sister, Myrtle. So, if Alf and Holly got on like the anticipated house on fire, then we could have her to stay whenever they went off on their travels.


After a slightly nervous beginning attributable to our dog’s sheer size, everything went swimmingly. We ate a clotted-cream tea in celebration of Sophie’s birthday and aah-ed to see the two dogs tug a rope together until Large got a little fed up with Little’s constant demands. It was all very charming and bodes well for a happy and harmonious future.


We’ve all been watching and enjoying Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Ford’s Parade’s End on BBC2, so I was determined – despite the impact of such a packed Saturday on mind and body – to stay up for an Arena special on the fascinating figure that adopted the brilliant nom de plume of Ford Madox Ford. At first, I was bright and alert, but gradually slipped off into Never Never Land. Fortunately I had the wit to press ‘Record’.


Thus ended a momentous first day of September 2012. That night I dreamed that Daisy had returned. Lying on an old checked shirt of mine, she had swollen to the size of Sister Myrtle. When I got up in the morning, I found her lying on her sofa, washing her belly. She was still the runt of the litter and hadn’t put on a single ounce during the 24 hours spent away from home.

Lovely words and sentiments, Barbara. You've almost convinced me! The trouble is September will always I think equal la rentree. But it's true, it can often be a beautiful month. Hope you enjoy yours.

Sweetest September with her flavour of the fall.

Cool in the wake of morning then slowly revealing a warm glow

by mid day ready for a lunch time picnic in amongst the ancient trees.

Here in my little Holland park I have it all.

Summer is leaving slowly with the promise of change.

A little less work and more time for friends and leasure.

September...my favourite month...

Living in France...what a pleasure

Thanks so much for your supportive comments, peeps. They reach the parts that other motivators cannot. Happy living indeed, Barbara. Aren't we lucky living where we do? Despite all the irritations and frustrations - and I was reading that terrible tale of EDF terror that made me feel like I was trapped in some Kafkaesque nightmare - we are blessed. It was difficult to get up this morning because the frisky wind here has brought a chill to the air, but I was saying to my beloved: we could be living in some Glasgow tower-block, overlooking a motorway and an urban wasteland, with the prospect of another week's work (if we were lucky) in a meat-packing plant. Brrrrr. I shudder at the thought and hereby count my blessings.

A real reflection of happy living in France written by Mark.

Reminds me of the fact I feel at home here in France.

The pace of life slows down once more as the crowds disperse.

And the cooler evenings came swiftly to re unite us with duvets and

bed time drinks....this time not local cranberry juice but warm cocoa.

I can see a good sized pile of wood ready for the fire as a look out

at the garden.Green at the mement but soon to be shades of rusty red

golden and brown.

But the hunting season....not welcome...

We keep the cats inside on Sundays away from the intimidating dogs

and make a promise of all their favourite goodies...prawns, tuna fish

and roast chicken plus their favourite winter blankets so that they can

feel relaxed and listien to some music.

Splendid Mark, purely splendid. It entirely sums up my own sentiments and I think I felt my first log fire coming on, soon enough but 1 September has been and gone.

FAB! Made me smile!

Brilliant Mark. Your "posts" always make me smile, you have such a way of expressing things I could never aspire to. Thanks.